As the strong M&A trend in wealth management continues in 2025, investors may have questions about continued quality of service, dedication to clients’ needs, cost-cutting and other matters when their advisors’ firms are acquired or receive significant investments from outside companies or individuals.
To learn the best marcoms strategies that advisors can use to address clients about M&A transactions, we spoke with Kevin Santo, Account Director, Wealth Management at Water & Wall; Lisa Graham, Co-Founder and CEO of Graham Media Partners; and Ray Hennessey, CEO and Executive Partner of Vocatus.
We asked each of them: What strategies work best to communicate to clients about an M&A transaction involving the advisor’s firm?
Their responses follow.
Lisa Graham, Co-Founder And CEO, Graham Media Partners
When a firm goes through a major change like a merger, acquisition or significant investment, it’s important that clients don’t get lost in the shuffle.
To make the transition successful for all your stakeholders, be sure to:
Err on the side of overcommunication. Eliminate as much confusion, doubt and misinformation as possible by communicating often and through various channels. To ensure this happens, map out a content strategy with dates and key messages in advance, and start writing drafts as soon as possible – keeping in mind that your compliance parties and processes may change due to a transaction.
Personalize the message. Communication matters, but authenticity does too. Make sure you reach out directly to your most important clients, referral sources and relationships; don’t rely on mass email to get your message across.
Focus on the benefits. Surely, you’ve thought about the benefits of this transaction for your firm, but what are the benefits for your clients? Make sure your messaging emphasizes what will improve and what will stay the same for them. Don’t forget to let them know your commitment to client service and personal relationship will remain as strong as ever.
Streamline the transition. Make the change as frictionless as possible for your clients by taking care of any new paperwork, access changes and new options.
When your firm makes a major transition, it’s important to look at it from your clients’ perspective. Keeping them at the center of your messaging is the key to a successful communication strategy.
Ray Hennessey, CEO And Executive Partner, Vocatus
One of the biggest mistakes companies make when acquiring firms is removing the advisors of the acquired company from the communications plan altogether.
Wealth management is a relationship business, and that relationship rests solely between an advisor and her clients. Brands and platforms don’t matter as much to the clients themselves, particularly in RIAs. That means that the advisors—the people—are the best evangelists for storytelling around the rationale for the transaction, the benefits to the clients and the positive changes yet to come.
Yet, too often, the acquiring brands monopolize the communications, a strategy that alienates clients.
Also, many acquirers mishandle the tension that exists between giving too little information and too much in the earliest days. For clients, this is a time of great uncertainty and fear. There sometimes is an impulse to face that uncertainty by laying out a lot of changes or new initiatives to assure clients that there is a plan. Yet, this can also lead to information overload if too much information is given at once.
Acquisitions are designed for the long term. Having a careful communications plan that doesn’t overwhelm people and can be delivered over time always leads to the best outcomes.
Finally, the type of acquirer matters. As more private equity firms become investors or acquirers, they have a special duty to reassure clients that they are providing strategic and long-term stewardship and aren’t going to be cutting costs, eliminating resources and readying for a turnaround exit.
Kevin Santo, Account Director, Wealth Management, Water & Wall
Before fully diving in, I think it’s important to note a firm’s M&A communications strategy and messaging can, and likely should, look different depending on its audience. Internal communications with existing employees should also be a firm’s top priority.
However, transparency is always paramount. That’s especially true when a firm communicates with existing clients about a merger or acquisition, or a significant third-party investment.
With that in mind, the first step firms should take is to develop clear, consistent messaging. That messaging should offer necessary details such as the rationale for the transaction and anticipated benefits. However, the messaging should also convey a firm’s dedication to maintaining the same culture and core values a client was initially attracted to and has grown accustomed to.
Once messaging is developed, it’s important for firms to provide advisors with those materials and, in some cases, training. This ensures a firm is delivering a consistent message, but also empowers advisors to address concerns directly and confidently.
This is especially important when you consider that most advisors have built unique trust with their clients over multiple decades, and the biggest risk to business continuity during a transaction is a client losing that same trust.
In that same vein, inviting clients to share questions or concerns is an additional positive step that can be taken to ensure they feel heard and valued. And, at the end of the day, if your clients feel heard and valued, your communications strategy has effectively supported a strategic transaction.
Jeff Berman, Contributing Editor and Reporter at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jeff.berman@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
